## Facts

- A Catholic parish hosted an annual three-day festival on church property, earning revenue from festival proceeds, sales, and vendor space rentals.
- A nonprofit vendor (4‑H) rented booth space and operated a food booth using its own equipment, including a propane tank and cooking appliances.
- Only 4‑H personnel accessed and worked inside the booth; the church did not staff or run the booth’s interior operations.
- A fire occurred inside the booth while teenage volunteers and an adult were working, injuring them.
- The injured volunteers and their families sued the church (through the Diocese) and a propane supplier, alleging negligence and premises liability tied to a propane leak or equipment defect.

## Issues

1. Whether volunteers working inside a third-party vendor’s booth at a festival were the landowner’s invitees or licensees.
2. If the volunteers were licensees, whether the evidence conclusively established the landowner breached the duty owed to licensees (including actual knowledge of a dangerous condition).
3. Whether alleged evidentiary errors, improper jury argument, or evidentiary sufficiency required reversal and a new trial.

## Decision

- The court held the volunteers were licensees of the landowner, not invitees.
- The court concluded plaintiffs did not conclusively establish that the landowner breached any duty owed to licensees.
- The court held the trial court committed no reversible error regarding evidence, jury argument, or sufficiency challenges.
- The court reversed the court of appeals in relevant part and rendered judgment that plaintiffs take nothing, reinstating the take-nothing judgment for the landowner (with no recovery against the co-defendant).

## Legal Principles

- Invitee status requires entry with the owner’s knowledge for the mutual benefit of both parties, typically involving a direct business relationship; the owner must use reasonable care to protect against unreasonable risks the owner knew or should have known.
- A licensee enters with permission primarily for the licensee’s or a third party’s benefit; the owner’s duty is limited to warning or making safe dangers the owner actually knows about and the licensee does not, and to avoid willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct.
- Premises-liability classification turns on the specific relationship and benefit tied to the entrant’s activity, not on generalized economic benefit the landowner may receive from an event.
- Absent proof the landowner retained control over the manner or instrumentalities of the third party’s operations, the landowner is not liable on a retained-control theory for hazards arising from those operations.
- When evidence on causation and negligence is conflicting, the jury resolves credibility and weight; appellate relief requires a showing meeting the applicable sufficiency and reversible-error standards.

## Conclusion

Because the volunteers worked under a third party’s supervision for that third party’s benefit inside a booth the landowner did not operate or control, they were licensees, and the plaintiffs failed to prove the landowner breached the limited duty owed or that trial errors required a new trial; judgment was rendered that plaintiffs take nothing.


Catholic Diocese of El Paso v. Porter, 622 S.W.3d 824 (Tex. 2021)